Annual Reports President and Treasurer J92j-J924
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WELLESLEY COLLEGE BULLETIN ANNUAL REPORTS PRESIDENT AND TREASURER J92J-J924 WELLESLEY, MASSACHUSETTS MAY, 1925 PUBLISHED BY THE COLLEGE IN JANUARY, MAY, JUNE, NOVEMBER, DECEMBER Entered as second-class matter December 20, 1911, at \he post-office, at Boston, Massachusetts, under Act of of Congress July 16, 1894, and continued under Act of Congress of August 24, 1912. SERIES 14 NUMBER 5 WELLESLEY COLLEGE ANNUAL REPORTS PRESIDENT AND TREASURER 1921-1924 PRESS OF GEO. H. ELLIS CO. (INC.) BOSTON PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL REPORT I have the honor to present a formal report for the three years from July 1, 1921, to June 30, 1924; for which oral reports only have annually been made. The supplementary reports of the other administrative officers are included for these same three years. During this period various changes have occurred in the Board of Trustees. In November, 1922, Mrs. Farlow presented her resignation. She had been a member of the Board for thirty-four years, and during a large part of that time she was a member of the Executive Committee. The Board spread upon its records the following minute in appreciation of her service to the College:— The Trustees of Wellesley College, in accepting the resignation of Mrs. Lilian Horsford Farlow, desire to record their high appreciation of her service of thirty-four years as a loyal trustee of the College, carrying for- ward those noble traditions which were the heritage from her honored father, Professor Eben Norton Horsford, friend of the CoUege and of its founders, whose wise and generous gifts have permanently enriched its Ufe. Mrs. Farlow's unfailing interest, her counsel in the deliberations of the Executive Committee and of other important committees, her ready response in times of emergency, her faithfulness and friendliness through the years, sum up a notable contribution to the welfare of the College which will be held in grateful remembrance. Her membership in the Board of Trustees outranks in length that of all of her colleagues who are now in active service, and its close is recorded in great reluctance and with sincere regret. In May, 1923, Mr. William H. Lincohi and Mr. WilHam Blodget presented their resignations. Mr. Lincoln had been a member of the Board for twenty-six years and served on many important committees. In 1914 he was made vice- 3 Wellesley College president, an oflfice which he held at the time of his resignation. It is a pleasure to record here Mr. Lincoln's devotion to the interests of the College. He was always ready to give time and counsel to its affairs. It was with regret that the Trustees accepted his resignation made necessary by advancing years. Mr. Blodget was elected to the Board in 1908. During his term of office he served on the Building and Finance Com- mittees. He was chairman of the Finance Committee at the time of his resignation. The Tiustees were reluctant to accede to his desire to be reheved and would have urged him to with- draw his resignation had they not realized that his health demanded his release. He always gave sympathetic and efficient consideration to college problems. He died at his home in Brookline on June 23, 1923. True to her beUef that the trustee term of service should be comparatively short, Miss Sarah Lawrence resigned from the Board in November, 1923, after a term of seven years. She had rendered valuable service to the Board in unusual ways, and the College felt deeply the loss involved in her resignation, and welcomes the thought that as the wife of Bishop Slattery she will still have a vital connection with the Board and the College. The six-year term of Miss Charlotte H. Conant as alumna trustee expired in June, 1924, when she was succeeded by Mrs. Alma Seipp Hay of the class of 1899. Miss Conant had served during the greater part of her term on the Committee on Grounds where her nearness to Wellesley gave the College fuller benefit of her essential value as a member of the Board. Her experience will always be at the service of the College, although she will not longer have an official connection with the Board of Trustees. In view of these losses it is a pleasure to report several additions to the Board. Miss Grace G. Crocker of the class of 1904, on nomination of the Alumnae Association, succeeded Miss Candace Stimson in 1922, when on the expiration of her term as alumna trustee, Miss Stimson was elected by the Board trustee without hmit of term. Miss Crocker later accepted the responsibility of Executive Chairman of the 4 President's Report Semi-Centennial Fund Campaign Committee. If and when the College succeeds in its attempt to complete this fund of nine millions, it will be largely due to Miss Crocker's devotion and intelligent consideration of the problems involved. The Rt. Rev. Charles Lewis Slattery, Bishop Coadjutor of Massachusetts, accepted membership on the Board in January, 1923, and at the same meeting Wilham Morton Wheeler, Professor of Economic Entomology and Dean of Bussey Insti- tute of Harvard University, was elected to the Board. In May, 1923, the Board was further strengthened by the election of Mr. Robert G. Dodge and Mr. Hugh W. Ogden, both lawyers of established reputation in Boston. As indicated above, Mrs. Alma Seipp Hay of Chicago, a member of the class of 1899, was elected in June, 1924, on the nomination of the Alumnae Association. It seemed desirable to the Alumnae to mden the geographical distribution of the alumnae trustees, and Mrs. Hay is admirably qualified to represent the section from which she comes. During the three years covered by this report the ofiicial staff of the College has met with heavy losses by death. Miss Carohne B. Thompson (Ph.D. University of Penn- sylvania), Professor of Zoology, died on December 5, 1921, at a hospital in Boston. Miss Thompson was appointed instruc- tor in 1901, Associate Professor in 1909, and Professor in 1917. She was an investigator and teacher of unusual brilliancy, and her loss to the department and the College is deeply felt. In May, 1924, after a long and distressing illness. Miss Adelaide I. Locke (B.A. Mt. Holyoke, S.T.B. Hartford Theological Seminary), Associate Professor of Bibhcal History, died at her home in Wellesley. Miss Locke was appointed instructor in Biblical History in 1896 and Associate Professor in 1900. On August 24, 1923, Mabel Annie Stone, Assistant Professor of Botany, died at her home in Waltham. She had been on leave of absence since June, 1921, because of illness. Miss Stone received the B.A. degree from Wellesley in 1907; the M.A. in 1912. She was appointed instructor in 1912, and Assistant Professor in 1917. The service rendered by these three women is so unusual and varied that it cannot be better Wellesley College expressed than by extracts from the resolutions adopted by their colleagues of the Academic Council of the Faculty: In the death of our colleague, CaroUne Burling Thompson, we the mem- bers of the Academic Council desire to record our sense of loss. During her twenty years connection with the College she endeared herself to a wide circle of friends by her warm personal devotion, by the breadth of her intellectual interests, and by her love of beauty both in nature and in art. Her students found in her an inspiring teacher, a wise and sympathetic counselor, and a generous guide to those who sought to enter the higher fields of scientific attainment. Hers was the temper of a scholar whom nothing daunted. In the midst of her generous response to college, family, and community activities she pursued with single-minded tenacity researches in her chosen field, in which she won distinction and gained wide recognition from scientists in this country and abroad. The College has been the richer for her presence, for her loyalty to its highest interests and ideals, and for her productive scholarship. To the members of her family and to her friends, we the members of the Academic Council extend our heart-felt sympathy. The death of Adelaide I. Locke, Associate Professor of Biblical History, removes from our m.idst one who has gone in and out among us for almost thirty years. We desire not only to express our own grief, our own sense of loss and our heartfelt sjTnpathy with the bereaved mother and sisters, but also to put on record our appreciation of her worth to the CoUege she served so long. Her charge of large classes in a required course brought under her influ- ence many students upon whom her demands were exacting but just. To all she gave liigh standards of scholarship and to the best the stimulus to vital and independent thinking. The theme of her teaching was the inter- pretation of religion and to that interpretation she brought a philosophic mind, wide reading and a deep personal experience. Her breadth of outlook gave her understanding of faiths other than her own—of widely different Christian communions such as the Eastern Church which she had known in her childhood, of the Hebrew faith with which she had a deep sympathy, and of alien and primitive religions. The same power of understanding others made her loyal in friendship; the same depth of convictions made her, on occasion, speak to us with the voice of a prophet. Our prevailing impression of her character is one of strength and reserve. It was a strength deeply rooted in her ancestry, fortified by self-discipline and prayer, tested by disappointment and pain, proved equal to the strain President's Report of daily living and heavy burden-bearing, and capable of rising in the crises of suffering or apparent defeat to heroism.